


Drive the Wedge

by buckysbears (DrZebra)



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bonding, Friendship, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, mcu and fraction comic mashup because try to stop me, this is meaningless and silly until its not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 05:52:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13874514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrZebra/pseuds/buckysbears
Summary: Bucky's problems may be buried under years of repression and too many Henley's, but that doesn't mean he's going to avoid what needs to be said.Clint is good at distracting and less good at talking.





	Drive the Wedge

**Author's Note:**

> from the prompt: "i'm so tired" + clint and bucky 
> 
> i actually dont write them often at all and never together so this was new and fun for me!!

“I’m so tired,” Clint groans, setting himself carefully against the back of the couch. “I’ve never been this tired in my whole life. Since last Tuesday, at least.”

Bucky snorts. He’s still uncomfortable in the little Bed-Stuy apartment. It’s too small for him. Not in the literal sense. He’s been holed up in places smaller than this many times over the years (and honestly sometimes anything bigger than a cryo chamber feels expansive), but there’s something about this place. It’s cramped, but not necessarily in a bad way. He can’t explain it. There’s a lot of memories in this room, and it fills the place so much that maybe there’s no space for him left.

Clint would say he’s being stupid. There’s always room for him. Bucky’s not so sure.

“I’ve been tired for the last …” Bucky scratches at his nose. The metal of his fingers are cold, and he switches hands. “I dunno. Seventy years or so? So once it’s been that long for you, then you can come talk to me.”

Clint’s head hits the back cushion with a _thwump_. “Yeah, well. I’m not a super soldier. Just a guy with a few cracked ribs and a caffeine addiction.”

Bucky gives a wry smile. “Finally admitting that last bit, huh?”

“Kate likes it when I’m upfront about my various damages. That’s supposed to help or something.”

He shakes his head, even though Clint has closed his eyes. “Who’s that ever helped? All my shit is buried under several layers of repression and Henley’s, and I plan on keeping it that way.”

The laugh sticks in Clint’s throat, more of a choking sound than anything else. It doesn’t seem like he makes much of an effort of pushing it through. “Mine would escape if my arteries weren’t so clogged.”

“I have never seen a human put away more fatty foods than you do,” Bucky agrees.

“You gotta meet Katie,” Clint says, voice a low rumble. The affection is clear, even to Bucky. “She puts pizza away by the handful. Swear to god.”

“By the handful? Pizza?”

Clint waves his hand limply. It looks like it takes great effort. “Whatever. You get the gist.” And then, after a moment, “Pizza rolls. Those are by the handful, if you’re not a coward.”

The smile pulls at his lips without permission. “I’ll take your word for it.”

That, at least, gets Clint to crack open an eye. “Have you never had pizza rolls? My lord and savior Totino’s?”

“Your what?”

“Oh man. Dude.” Clint swings his legs one by one off the coffee table and pauses for a moment before hefting himself up. He lets out the kind of groan that people don’t usually make in front of each other unless they’re engaged in much more intimate activities. It would make a different kind of person blush. But Bucky doesn’t blush. “Okay. I’ve got probably four boxes in the freezer. Or one. I ate a sizable amount last night but I just stocked up so … anyway, I’m making you try them, and it’s going to be hilarious.”

“Why would it be hilarious?”

Clint waves behind him as he limps toward the kitchen area.

“That’s not an answer.”

Clint opens the freezer and claims a box, brandishing it above his head though he’s too far away for Bucky to read it. “Triple pepperoni, because I’m not an animal.”

“Clint.”

“Hm?”

“Why is it going to be hilarious?”

“Sometimes you just gotta let life happen, buddy.”

Bucky sinks lower onto the couch, arms crossed. The mechanics of his arm are too quiet for most people to hear. But it’s a constant for him, the low whir of machinery. It’s almost drowned out as Clint dumps the frozen rolls onto a plate and sticks it in the microwave.

When they’re done, he grabs a dishtowel and folds it over his arm, the other behind his back as he ceremoniously presents the plate of steaming, oozing pizza rolls to Bucky. The affect is somewhat dampened by his limp, his busted lip, the crust that’s starting to form over his swollen-shut eye.

“Monsieur,” Clint says.

Glaring suspiciously, Bucky takes up one roll between his fingers. It’s a little powdery, a little greasy, and warm. He puts the whole thing in his mouth, because he’s too old to bother with things like reasonable bite sizes. He promptly and unequivocally regrets it.

“Ho-wy _fuck_ ,” he manages, mouth gaping, sure steam is rising from it. He’s got a high pain tolerance (like. scarily high) but tears prick in the corners of his eyes as the molten lava starts seeping back toward his throat. He wines around the mushed roll.

Clint laughs. And laughs. And _laughs_ , and laughs so hard that he falls to the ground where he stands, clutching desperately at his aching ribs. Bucky manages to swallow down the death roll and gulps in the cold air of the apartment.

“Y-Your—” Clint waves a hand, as if begging him to stop. Bucky is sure he’s not doing anything but glaring. “Your fucking _face_ , holy shit, man.”

“Fuck you,” Bucky grounds out. He means it, too. He rarely means it, but he means it.

“If I knew how to record things on my phone, I definitely would have recorded that.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, his temper cooling along with his mouth. “You know how to use a phone. Don’t play dumb.”

Clint shrugs, wiping tears from his non-swollen eye. “I won’t confirm or deny.”

A hush falls over the apartment as Clint’s laugh eventually peters out. Quiet enough that the whir of his arm feels too loud. He worries that Clint can hear it, then remembers he’d turned his hearing aids down during the fight and likely hadn’t turned them back up. He flexes his fingers, feels each joint gliding, and Clint leans back against his arms. His breath is a little wheezy. He should probably get that checked.

“She’s going to be fine,” Bucky says, because he’s not sure what else to say and they can only dance around this for so long.

Clint glances over, and he smiles, and it looks like it hurts. “Nat? Yeah, of course. No doubt about it.”

“She’ll check in soon.”

Clint’s head bobs in the smallest little nods. “Yeah. Definitely. Soon. I mean, you know Nat. What’s the point of going on a high stakes op if you can’t disappear behind enemy lines and scare everyone a little? God, she’s—” He rolls his eyes, and yeah, that definitely hurt. “She’s all for the drama.”

Clint’s putting on a show, trying to talk himself out of whatever’s going on in his head. But Bucky’s never gotten anywhere walking on eggshells. He’s too heavy. “Has she done this before?”

Clint swallows. It’s rough. “Once.”

“How long was she gone?”

“Three weeks.”

“And she was okay?”

Clint’s mouth stretches into a smile. It’s so flat and scared that Bucky’s chest hurts a little. “She’s Nat.”

Bucky nods. It’s Nat. If she wasn’t okay, chances are you’d be dead before you found out.

“She’s going to be fine,” Bucky says again.

Clint scratches at something on his floor. “You ever seen Dog Cops?”

“What?”

“The show. Dog Cops.”

He finally looks up, and Bucky knows that in aged years they really aren’t that far apart, Clint is older than he was when he went under, but god. God, he looks young. Bucky shakes his head. “Do you have it?”

“I’ve got some DVRed. Episode two, episode five, and 11 through 14.”

Bucky nods, and isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say.

“Episode five is really good.”

His lips twist. His arms are both warm against his sides, but in different ways. One warm flesh and the other working mechanics. “Do you want to watch it?” He thinks that’s what he’s supposed to say. He thinks that’s what Clint wants of him.

Clint starts explaining as he digs under the couch cushion for the remote from his place on the floor. Bucky has no idea what he’s talking about, really. Something about how he should pay attention to Telly’s character arc, and the tension with Sarge, and how the animation really is cleaner than you would expect for blah blah _blah_. It’s show and fluff so he doesn’t have to say what he’s really thinking. Bucky nods along, dutifully.

Clint settles against the couch, legs spread under the coffee table. He hums along to the opening credits. Bucky isn’t sure what this is, what his role in this situation is supposed to be. But they’re in a cold, rundown apartment with chipped paint and flickering lights, and Bucky can hear someone yelling from outside, and there’s a blond head near his knee with wheezing breath and all of it is so different and so familiar that Bucky can’t help reaching out and, just for a moment, messing his hair.

He’s not sure if that’s what he was supposed to do.

But Clint smiles.


End file.
